MERINDA’s BOOK SHELF: Top Picks

If you like to read, bibliotherapy is a great way to deepen your understanding of your particular problem and possible solutions and enhance your experience within treatment. You can read these on your own, or in conjunction with ongoing counseling sessions. By topic, here are some of the books I’ve found most useful.

Relationships & Sexuality

• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson

• Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships by Dr. Sue Johnson

• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Dr. John Gottman

• Come As You Are by Dr. Emily Nagoski

• Come Together by Dr. Emily Nagoski

• polysecure by Jessica Fern

• Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

Parenting

• Parenting From the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell

• The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

• No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

• The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans: How to Decode Their Behavior, develop Unshakable Trust, and Raise a Respectable Adult by Josh Shipp

Blended Families

• The StepFamily Handbook: From Dating, to Getting Serious, to Forming a “Blended Family” by Karen Bonnell and Dr. Patricia Papernow

Health & Wellness

• Radical Compassion by Tara Brach

• Burnout by Drs. Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

• Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab

• Is This Autism? by Donna Henderson and Sarah Wayland with Jamell White

• When Religion Hurts You by Dr. Laura Anderson

• Any and every book written by Dr. Brené Brown

Workbooks & Other Tools

• What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety by Dr. Dawn Huebner

• Cool, Calm & Connected: A Workbook for Parents and Children to Co-regulate, Manage Big Emotions & Build Stronger Bonds by Dr. Martha Straus

• Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens by Dr. Mary Karapetian Alvord and Anne McGrath

• Fair Play Deck: A Couple’s Conversation Deck for Prioritizing What’s Important by Eve Rodsky